Father of four Sydney ISIS fighters pleads with them to come home

The father of four western Sydney brothers who disappeared only to emerge in Syria having joined Islamic State has pleaded with them to come home.

The teen’s distraught father, Issam "Sam" El Baf, said yesterday he would never have taken 17-year-old Taha El Baf and his brothers, aged 23, 25 and 28, to the airport if he had known they were going to Syria.

"Come home, we want to see them and hug them," he said.

"We couldn’t believe it ourselves. Our kids, they wouldn’t even play in the street."

The brothers had told their family they were going on holiday to Thailand before their sister received a text message.

"We made it to Bilad al-Sham (a region of Syria), we will see you in Paradise," it read.

The text, received five days after the brothers left Australia almost a month ago, was the last ¬contact with the family.